Josh McCown Reflects On His Long Career
Josh McCown has officially hung up his many, many cleats. He shall be missed.
Josh McCown was like the football equivalent of a “that guy”. Those character actors who never break through to mainstream success but randomly show up in shows and movies and you yell out “hey it’s that guy! I know that guy!”. Chances are you saw Josh McCown every once in a while and each time he was on a different team. He even played in the UFL for a brief year. McCown never developed into a consistent starter but he tended to end up on bad teams. 10 bad teams, to be exact. He spent years backing people up and occasionally getting a chance to start. He was almost like a less malevolent Ryan Fitzpatrick.
If you looked up “Journeyman Quarterback” in the dictionary, you probably wouldn’t find anything because why would that be in the dictionary? But if you looked it up in a football encyclopedia, you’d get no pictures, because why would they have pictures for something as unimportant as a journeyman quarterback. But Josh McCown was the quintessential Journeyman Quarterback.
He just never went away. He played football at a mediocre level for 17 years. That can hardly be called a bad career. That’s a celebration-worthy career, quite frankly. It’s not like McCown spent that whole time on a bench. He played a fair number of games, especially in these past 5-6 seasons. I remember him coming in for Jay Cutler on the Bears and genuinely looking awesome for a couple of games, causing a mild QB controversy since Chicago hated Cutler so much. I remember him getting traded to the Bucs and then getting hurt, introducing us to Mike “The Neck” Glennon. I remember he looked okay for the woeful Browns but again suffered injuries. McCown wasn’t a safe football player. The man loves to ball. This was genuinely one of his best qualities. It’s fun to watch a player clearly enjoying the game. You see it a lot with these long-time backups. They finally get back out there and they just seem so happy to be playing again. They might suck, but they are gonna leave it on the field.
Josh McCown might have never been particularly great, but he left it on the field and he did it for 17 years. I’ll raise a glass to that.
COMIC UPDATE: Next week is gonna be a good week that will reward all of those with patience. I know you’ve been waiting for it. A lot has developed in the land of wealth this offseason, and it will finally be properly addressed. But it will be more than that. The richness of this story might never be the same. Stay tuned!
Money comics are going to be the next GoT finale?
Has anyone been sitting off to the side not doing anything in the money comics? Man, I need to re-read.
He and his brother are the Mannings of journeyman QBs.
Guess that makes the Carrs the Mannings of bad QBs.
Would that mean that Derek Carr is Eli Manning of bad QBs? Because is Eli is worse then Peyton. So a bad QB Eli Manning (I know, I know) shloud be a better QB then a bad QB Peyton Manning?
I’m on board. Also I guess that makes Luke the Eli of journeyman QBs since he was the worse of the two.
I think you’re half-right. Luke is the Eli of journeyman, but the reason is that he has only been on 7 teams, to Josh’s 10. The property that makes a good journeyman QB is the journeying. Football ability is inconsequential.
Not sure of the older Carr is necessarily a bad QB since the Texans were an expansion team who let him get sacked to the point it might as well qualify as rape. That was how Couch got rekt. Maybe broken QBs.
To think Phil Simms managed to forge a career after going through a similar experience in the early 1980s. One have to become the strongest QB to survive alright.
Yay!
New elite money comics? Yay!!!
He made almost $50mil for his career, including over $17mil the last two years for the Jets.
Not bad for a backup.
He’s no Matt Flynn!
Matt Flynn only made $19mil in his career, so… yeah.
Not enough chin.
I’ll miss McCown. I think you captured his career arc perfectly. He’s just good enough that he could out-work everyone and stay in the league, but never good enough to actually be good for more than a few flashes at a time.
McCown had to play WR more than once which is insane.
On Josh McCown’s journeyman career, Miami wasn’t even a truck stop. it was a rushed piss behind a palm tree on the I-95.
Chad Pennington was signed the day before his sole (narf) Fins game – in 2008’s preseason week 1; and even then it was the 4th quarter when he got on the field. It doesn’t even show up in his stats on PFR.com.
I thought Vinny Testaverde was the pic next to Journeyman QB.
Maybe there should be some gathering of the Journeymans. That could be interesting and fun.
Without looking it up, I’m going to try and guess where he went based on this retrospective.
Cardinals
Lions
Don’t know (Raiders, maybe?)
Dolphins
Panthers
49ers (or maybe the Chiefs?)
Bears
Buccaneers
Browns
Jets (I admit, I cheated; I remembered him being there recently.)
Also: where are the sweet doggie pics?
And his middle name is “Treadwell”. Not a joke! Joshua Treadwell McCown
Although look at this pic and tell me he’s NOT actually Max Headroom….
https://images.app.goo.gl/a7MSYGCcaUm8pymM9
So is McCown kinda the Reverse Quarterback Hydra, with many jerseys but one head???
You lie, there are no dog pictures. 🙁
Interceptaverde actually was considered a starter on both the Browns and Bucs, and played well enough to be a shitty starter in both instances. And I’m not sure he had the journey McCown had. I think it’s McCown for sure. How many articles for ‘great mentor’ were written about McCown for christ sake, versus Vinny?
Aaaannd he’s back now. Un-retired and signed with the Eagles after both their backup QBs went belly-up in their preseason outings with a broken wrist and a concussion each. Make way for jersey photo #11!
Given Wentz’s vulnerability to injuries, we might even get to see old man McCown play a regular season game or two this year! Wowzers!
Beat me to it. This was a pretty short retirement.
I mean, he finaly got to play in a playoff game as a send off “gift” (assuming he retires again) Not that he could do anything there, the Iggles being in the playoffs at all after this year full of apocalyptic injury is equal parts thanks to Wentz shuting the haters up and straight up balling, Peterson delivering another Top 5 coaching performance and the Dallas Jerry Joneses being their incompetent self. And even Wentz & Doug wouldnt have been able to make it happen if not for the Lulboys.
The most surprising thing to me tho is that they actualy took Wentz out and didnt let him come back. Even 5 years ago there would have been no way in hell the NFL enforced the concussion protocol on a QB in a playoff game unless the guy was literaly knocked out cold for a couple seconds on the field. A bit wobly but walking under his own power? Have some Gatorade, sit out this drive and come back in after 10 minutes, no ones gona notice…